On fiction: "Hard to be a God" review
What if, from the safety and wisdom of some super-advanced Earth, both technologically and morally, we could observe a world that looks a lot like the one our ancestors lived in? What should we do, if anything? Such questions are posed in a scenario that reveals there are no easy answers.
It's useful for a review to first establish the context in which "Hard to be a God" appeared. It was published in 1964, in the USSR, so one expects that the text has suffered interventions to make it more 'politically correct'. Such suspicions are founded. But they are not the whole picture. The vision of the future Earth, a Communist Utopia briefly glimpsed in incomplete flashbacks, is not just party-approved. I do believe it was genuinely felt, by the authors. Even this doesn't exhaust the facts though.
Because it is clear even at this early stage of their career that the Strugatskys are suspicious of the Soviet program. The world they contrast against Communist Paradise Earth is some piece of dirt stuck in the Dark Ages, with all the usual, Communist literature villains- oppressive barons, kings and especially clergymen. Even so, there is a distinctly 'stalinist purge' atmosphere to the proceedings of this medieval world. The brothers would later claim that the main villain was inspired by Lavrentiy Beria, the head of Stalin's secret police. But the text speaks for itself. The people of the medieval-like Arkanar, where the story takes place, are kept in fear and mistrust of each other and anyone who gets too smart gets crushed by a secret police made of bullies and thugs.Everyone's a brute, and deliberately kept so, because education, learning, art, asking questions of the world and how it is supposed to be are all regarded as suspicious activities.
I suppose the brothers passed off Arkanar as an allegory for fascism; indeed, one incident recalls the in-fighting in the Nazi party, newly put in full power and needing to now establish a pecking order, this time inside itself. But Arkanar has echoes of the Middle Ages, the Soviet Union, and anywhere there was oppression.
It's also being watched. Agents of Earth have been sent there as scouts, to monitor the goings on. They mingle with the population, assume roles in Arkanar society, and report home their findings on society and history. Ignore the obvious questions; the people of Arkanar are of the same species as those of Earth, through some plot machinations that are not important here.
The agents of Earth are required to be "God-like". Which, to the Strugatskys, means passive observers, untouched and uninvolved emotionally. Arkanar is an event in progress. It will not be disturbed. In other words, the agents obey something like the Prime Directive of Star Trek.
The main character, Anton aka Don Rumata, one such agent, finds out that it's impossible to stay detached. He hates the world of Arkanar and most of the people in it. He explicitly regards most of them as less than human, and kept so by the less than human leadership that oppresses them. It's a vicious cycle of darkness, and especially with the recent killings targeting the few artists and scientists of Arkanar, it threatens to go on forever.
Anton cannot stay uninvolved. His Rumata alter-ego is supposed to be a womanizer, but he only finds one woman he deems worthy of his love in Arkanar. He wishes to save the creative, disinterested types that only seek the light of reason. His reasons for involvement are not just emotional- is it justifiable to watch an injustice being committed, knowing that you could prevent it?
But just what could be done? Anton tries to save certain people, ferrying them to safer havens, sometimes with success. It's a minor thing. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't remove Anton's feelings that more drastic action is needed, that a revolution must be started. Even in his emotional state however, he refuses that path. "Give us your thunder, God, or leave us alone" one of the people he saved- a perpetually rebellious peasant- tells him. He, Anton, cannot give the peasants thunder, because that would merely change who the bullies are. Then leave us alone, the peasant leader tells him, because your not-quite-interference is just false hope and saps the strength of revolution.Gods cannot just provide for all the needs of a civilization. Or else, that civilization becomes a simple bowl of fish.
All this heavy political thinking appears, typically of Strugatskian prose, in two dialogs that are almost melted in the background. The foreground of the story is that, much as he struggles with what to actually do, Anton knows- and we the readers know- that Earth, with its egalitarian society that respects human dignity and ambition is good, and has good people. Arkanar, with its divided society of moles and thugs, is bad, and the people are bad.
There is only one way this can end.
The plot wants it. The character wants it. I want it. The book can end in only one way- explosive catharsis, richly, lovingly detailed to relish every drop of blood spilled and every gut pierced by righteous violence. There would be page after page of death richly deserved and generously meted, revenge and retribution.
The Strugatskys do none of that.
Oh, the violence happens. Off screen, and we hear it summarized quickly, cleanly. With embarassment. Which is a pity. For once, I think the Strugatskys dropped the ball on an ending. Because, once you've savored and enjoyed the glorification of violence and murder that I've just advocated above, you might ask yourself who the bullies are now.
And -that- would have been a fitting ending to the book. It's not that the Earthlings are better; certainly the ones reading "Hard to be a God" are not. We've been worked into a vengeful frenzy by prose; the same vices that plagued the Middle Ages are alive and well inside our hearts. They just wait for a chance to get out, they just want to tell us it's all for a good cause, that whoever we crush had it coming anyway.
This revelation is inflicted only on Anton. The Strugatskys didn't dare to inflict it on the readership. Maybe they were afraid that nobody would care to get the message.
It's a pity.
It's useful for a review to first establish the context in which "Hard to be a God" appeared. It was published in 1964, in the USSR, so one expects that the text has suffered interventions to make it more 'politically correct'. Such suspicions are founded. But they are not the whole picture. The vision of the future Earth, a Communist Utopia briefly glimpsed in incomplete flashbacks, is not just party-approved. I do believe it was genuinely felt, by the authors. Even this doesn't exhaust the facts though.
Because it is clear even at this early stage of their career that the Strugatskys are suspicious of the Soviet program. The world they contrast against Communist Paradise Earth is some piece of dirt stuck in the Dark Ages, with all the usual, Communist literature villains- oppressive barons, kings and especially clergymen. Even so, there is a distinctly 'stalinist purge' atmosphere to the proceedings of this medieval world. The brothers would later claim that the main villain was inspired by Lavrentiy Beria, the head of Stalin's secret police. But the text speaks for itself. The people of the medieval-like Arkanar, where the story takes place, are kept in fear and mistrust of each other and anyone who gets too smart gets crushed by a secret police made of bullies and thugs.Everyone's a brute, and deliberately kept so, because education, learning, art, asking questions of the world and how it is supposed to be are all regarded as suspicious activities.
I suppose the brothers passed off Arkanar as an allegory for fascism; indeed, one incident recalls the in-fighting in the Nazi party, newly put in full power and needing to now establish a pecking order, this time inside itself. But Arkanar has echoes of the Middle Ages, the Soviet Union, and anywhere there was oppression.
It's also being watched. Agents of Earth have been sent there as scouts, to monitor the goings on. They mingle with the population, assume roles in Arkanar society, and report home their findings on society and history. Ignore the obvious questions; the people of Arkanar are of the same species as those of Earth, through some plot machinations that are not important here.
The agents of Earth are required to be "God-like". Which, to the Strugatskys, means passive observers, untouched and uninvolved emotionally. Arkanar is an event in progress. It will not be disturbed. In other words, the agents obey something like the Prime Directive of Star Trek.
The main character, Anton aka Don Rumata, one such agent, finds out that it's impossible to stay detached. He hates the world of Arkanar and most of the people in it. He explicitly regards most of them as less than human, and kept so by the less than human leadership that oppresses them. It's a vicious cycle of darkness, and especially with the recent killings targeting the few artists and scientists of Arkanar, it threatens to go on forever.
Anton cannot stay uninvolved. His Rumata alter-ego is supposed to be a womanizer, but he only finds one woman he deems worthy of his love in Arkanar. He wishes to save the creative, disinterested types that only seek the light of reason. His reasons for involvement are not just emotional- is it justifiable to watch an injustice being committed, knowing that you could prevent it?
But just what could be done? Anton tries to save certain people, ferrying them to safer havens, sometimes with success. It's a minor thing. It doesn't change anything. It doesn't remove Anton's feelings that more drastic action is needed, that a revolution must be started. Even in his emotional state however, he refuses that path. "Give us your thunder, God, or leave us alone" one of the people he saved- a perpetually rebellious peasant- tells him. He, Anton, cannot give the peasants thunder, because that would merely change who the bullies are. Then leave us alone, the peasant leader tells him, because your not-quite-interference is just false hope and saps the strength of revolution.Gods cannot just provide for all the needs of a civilization. Or else, that civilization becomes a simple bowl of fish.
All this heavy political thinking appears, typically of Strugatskian prose, in two dialogs that are almost melted in the background. The foreground of the story is that, much as he struggles with what to actually do, Anton knows- and we the readers know- that Earth, with its egalitarian society that respects human dignity and ambition is good, and has good people. Arkanar, with its divided society of moles and thugs, is bad, and the people are bad.
There is only one way this can end.
The plot wants it. The character wants it. I want it. The book can end in only one way- explosive catharsis, richly, lovingly detailed to relish every drop of blood spilled and every gut pierced by righteous violence. There would be page after page of death richly deserved and generously meted, revenge and retribution.
The Strugatskys do none of that.
Oh, the violence happens. Off screen, and we hear it summarized quickly, cleanly. With embarassment. Which is a pity. For once, I think the Strugatskys dropped the ball on an ending. Because, once you've savored and enjoyed the glorification of violence and murder that I've just advocated above, you might ask yourself who the bullies are now.
And -that- would have been a fitting ending to the book. It's not that the Earthlings are better; certainly the ones reading "Hard to be a God" are not. We've been worked into a vengeful frenzy by prose; the same vices that plagued the Middle Ages are alive and well inside our hearts. They just wait for a chance to get out, they just want to tell us it's all for a good cause, that whoever we crush had it coming anyway.
This revelation is inflicted only on Anton. The Strugatskys didn't dare to inflict it on the readership. Maybe they were afraid that nobody would care to get the message.
It's a pity.
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